Barf Forth Apocalyptica
hacks => blood & guts => Topic started by: lumpley on July 01, 2010, 03:13:06 PM
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Imagine a table. Lying on the table are ten needles, scattered a little, pointing all different directions but all lying flat on the tabletop. There's an eleventh needle too, though. Someone's stabbed it hard into the tabletop, so it stands up instead of lying down like the rest.
The eleventh needle declares the whole space to be 3-dimensional. Without it, you have the convenient plane: you can describe all the needles and their positions in only x- and y-terms. But that eleventh needle requires the z-axis, and so gives z-positions to all the others too.
The battlebabe violates several otherwise-consistent patterns in the character playbooks. Its value as a character-to-play isn't obvious from a casual reading; it breaks otherwise-evident mechanical standards; it includes apparent self-contradictions. Its sex move is an example of all three, but just an example; the whole character type is like its sex move. It seems aberrant.
It's not! They're all needles, straight, solid and sharp. It's just that the battlebabe declares the 3-dimensionality of the space. Don't try to understand the battlebabe in the other characters' x-y terms, it doesn't fit, it doesn't lie in the plane like that. Instead, try to understand what the battlebabe reveals about them. x-y-z.
-Vincent
This is related to this (http://apocalypse-world.com/forums/index.php?topic=91.0). Accordingly: "imbalance between the characters is an essential part of the game's color-first design, by the way. Balancing the characters overall would be counter to the game's design philosophy and goals."
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Insight about the fiction, or game design, or both, wrapped up into this playbook, right? (Insight in the "3 Insights" sense).
I feel like people are gonna have a huge lightbulb moment when they figure this thing out; me, I still don't have it, yet.
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And insight about real live human nature, too!
I'm not looking for lightbulbs, in this case, as it happens. I think people will just gradually come to a deeper understanding, through play and analysis over time. Understanding the battlebabe will mostly follow, not lead, understanding the system as a whole.
My plan here in this thread is just to reassure everybody that if you're affronted by the battlebabe, that's because she's affronting. She sticks up out of the table instead of lying flat on it like the rest.
-Vincent
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As Kieran said to John Harper, on the topic on playing AW at GPNW with strangers: sometimes you have to stop being a whiny little bitch and just bring it.
AW obliges you to bring it.
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Still a bit cryptic, but whatever, fair enough. (Vomit apocalyptica, make your move but misdirect and never speak its name.) It's a bit like interpreting the meaning of any relatively complex work of art - knowing the creators intention is interesting, but ultimately irrelevant; what it's 'about' is a product of you, the viewer.
I will note that far from being affronted by the 'babe, it's the character I most want to play, likely because of her obvious if slight incongruence with the other playbooks: Yeah, these characters all work within this framework, but this one works a bit differently from the rest.
Here's a question: If the Brainer was the first playbook, and the Angel was derived from that, where did the Battlebabe fall in the lineage? What sparked it and what came after, both in a literal design sense, and in the sense of 'inspired by that and responsible for inspiring this...'
Also, wasn't one of your characters a Battlebabe, V?
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The battlebabe was the 4th. Brainer, angel, hardholder, battlebabe.
3 points to define the plane, then a 4th point to define the space. By then the design space was clear to me; it was clear that I needed the battlebabe out there to declare it.
I don't remember the order of who came after. I think it was the skinner, the savvyhead, the gunlugger, and the chopper all in a mix. I do know that the last three were the driver, the operator and the hocus.
The battlebabe was the last one to get a major revision, though. I think that the operator and the angel both got minor revisions after the battlebabe's, but hers was the last major one.
I haven't played the game myself, yet!
-Vincent
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I'll run it for you at GenCon. :)
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Tim plays a Battlebabe in my game and is concerned about what he should be doing as a Battlebabe. Any advice?
Also, he wants to know if Buddy from Six String Samurai is the inspiration (or an inspiration) for the playbook.
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Arg, I wanted to post that in the Battlebabe thread.
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(Turns out I can split and merge threads! Who knew?)
My only advice is very general: he should figure out what his character wants, and then have her do whatever she would do to try to get it, I think. If other people have advice, great!
I've never seen Six String Samurai.
-Vincent
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Tim plays a Battlebabe in my game and is concerned about what he should be doing as a Battlebabe. Any advice?
Also, he wants to know if Buddy from Six String Samurai is the inspiration (or an inspiration) for the playbook.
When in doubt, look at the section on barter, consider what people will pay you money for, then figure out how you're going to make this month's jingle. Or, if your tastes are fairly grand, today's jingle.
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Also, he wants to know if Buddy from Six String Samurai is the inspiration (or an inspiration) for the playbook.
I asked about Buddy and what playbook would be best for him in another thread. Battlebabe probably makes the most sense for someone like him out of the lot. He was, as someone else pointed out, all about cool.
(though that movie obviously has a very different vibe from AW. i don't think any battlebabe is going to take on an entire army with just a sword)
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Also, he wants to know if Buddy from Six String Samurai is the inspiration (or an inspiration) for the playbook.
I asked about Buddy and what playbook would be best for him in another thread. Battlebabe probably makes the most sense for someone like him out of the lot. He was, as someone else pointed out, all about cool.
(though that movie obviously has a very different vibe from AW. i don't think any battlebabe is going to take on an entire army with just a sword)
Nope. Speaking from experience, being a Battlebabe is great for being just competant enough to get into trouble in style. You can get out of trouble too, just not by doing violence. A battlebabe might take on an entire army with a sword, but he'd get out by sweet-talking the army into doing him a favor, not by decimating them.
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Six String Samurai is a fun film, but as Vincent's disavowed ever seeing it, it's not going to make the cut as far as influences. By extension, I don't really feel like 6SS really maps very well to AW - the tone and themes are fairly different, IMO.
It does raise the question of what did inspire the Battlebabe. I don't really see any characters from the works in the Immediate Media Influences that map all that closely. However, this may be more because of how characters and action are portrayed in film/TV; Nearly everyone is a good looking ass-kicker. So the Battlebabe is kindof the archetypical protagonist in this sort of thing, although specific characters are often better represented using some other playbook.
Before the discussion of the Battlebabe's Special Move falls by the wayside, I'll posit this: There isn't a specific mechanical impetus to engage in or abstain from sex for a Battlebabe or their partners. As such, the character doesn't have a sex drive beyond whatever the player assigns to her, and whether they do it or don't do it is going to come from the fiction; basically the players have to decide when it happens solely because it makes sense to them and they want to do so. (It's all happy-faces and clouds, no boxes involved…)
I can also see some situations where the Battlebabe's Special would contribute to generating triangles of conflict/interest with other PCs, alone, or in conjunction with NPCs.
I'm still not sure I get what Vincent's talking about with x-y-z axes though.
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Before the discussion of the Battlebabe's Special Move falls by the wayside, I'll posit this: There isn't a specific mechanical impetus to engage in or abstain from sex for a Battlebabe or their partners. As such, the character doesn't have a sex drive beyond whatever the player assigns to her, and whether they do it or don't do it is going to come from the fiction; basically the players have to decide when it happens solely because it makes sense to them and they want to do so. (It's all happy-faces and clouds, no boxes involved…)
I can also see some situations where the Battlebabe's Special would contribute to generating triangles of conflict/interest with other PCs, alone, or in conjunction with NPCs.
I'm still not sure I get what Vincent's talking about with x-y-z axes though.
I'm still not sure either, but your post just gave me some possible insight. So, I remember in one of Vincent's posts from a ways back that he said that he'd like to see more sex in RPGs. I think AW is pretty clearly related to this desire.
What really triggered a 'wait a minute!' moment for me in your post, though, was the fact that the battlebabe has no mechanical impetus to have sex (or not) whereas the other characters all have some mechanical influence on their sex drives. So, specifically in an x, y, z sense, the x and y defines various mechanical pulls towards sex moves, and the y defines the fictional causes and/or the players vision for the character. More broadly, I'm thinking that those same axes could apply to any character action in the game. The x and y are the mechanical pushes and pulls on particular behaviors (a gunlugger will likely be violent to get what he wants, a skinner will be pushed to manipulate people, et cetera) but the y there represents the interactions on a fictional level and the player's desires for their characters as characters. So maybe the battlebabe is pointing out to us that as cool as the mechanical incentives for story are, they're not the whole system.
But I could be making shit up off the top of my head.
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It does raise the question of what did inspire the Battlebabe. I don't really see any characters from the works in the Immediate Media Influences that map all that closely.
Somewhere I heard that Firefly is one of the inspirations and I think Jayne is a pretty obvious battlebabe. He isn't really super great at dealing with being in a fight, he just gets in them a lot 'cause he's kinda dumb and belligerent, and gets out when he's lucky or has help.
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Jeez, you all have some wussy battlebabes, I guess. All of ours have kicked 10 kinds of ass, in fights and out.
"Running through the hail of bullets until they have to reload then flipping over the guy and cutting his head off from behind," is acting under fire + going aggro. No one is better at that than the battlebabe.
"Assaulting the bunker," is gunlugger work. Battlebabe's only suck when you try to make them gunluggers.
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I'll second John by saying that the one time I played a BB, s/he was all murderous on purpose. Not just going aggro but you know killing dude with knives and shotguns.
Just cause you don't have +2 or +3 hard doesn't mean you have to be a pussy.
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Zoe from Firefly.
She's not as good as Jayne, but still kicks ass in a stealth way and is good at managing combat.
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Zoe from Firefly.
She's not as good as Jayne, but still kicks ass in a stealth way and is good at managing combat.
And is, you know, smokin' hot. Don't forget that one.
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@ Jeff : Yeah, I'm thinking along the same lines. And I'm also not sure if this is something intentionally placed in the game, something that's there but not intentionally placed, or just something I'm projecting.
I do have the feeling the game is going to get really good when players start letting the fiction influence the mechanics rather than the other way around. It's still a cycle, but you're taking a different point to be the beginning/end.
As to the example characters from fiction, anyone have anything NOT from Firefly? Yeah, it's listed in the Mediography (alongside Princess Mononoke, et al) and I like Whedon's cartoon space western as much as the next person, but I'm not convinced that the inspirational connection between the playbooks and the characters on that show goes the way everyone seems to think it does. Yeah, I can see how you could emulate the characters on the show using various playbooks, but I'm not sure those characters are conversely the sole or primary inspiration for the playbooks.
As an example, Jax on Sons Of Anarchy (which also makes the mediography) seems to be pretty much using the Battlebabe playbook, at least from what I've seen of the first season; Fairly badass, but uses Go Aggro or Seduce/Manipulate far more than Seize By Force. But I don't really get the feeling that character inspired the playbook.
Thing is, I know the character type the Battlebabe represents pretty well, (and have played it a number of times in RPGs), but I'll be damned if I can point my finger at where it comes from, particularly within an apocalyptic frame of reference.
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I can't help but think of Milla Jovovich. If she faced more human opponents than viral zombies I think her Hot would come into play more often. Anyway, she's my front runner for prototypical Battlebabe.
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Weird, I always thought River was Firefly's battlebabe, pretty straightforwardly. But maybe I just never thought it through.
As for the sex move, it seems to me that a character based on +cool, in a game that Vincent has specifically said is about loyalty, would form a pretty obvious counterpoint/ratcheting-up of the basic issues of the game. Here is a character who is built to be immune to attachment -- to ignore the threat of violence -- to be unphased by basically everything -- if the player wants to go that way. Think about how many things in the game (mind control, combat medicine, social compulsion) are modelled by 'you can do X, but it counts as acting under fire' and then consider that the battlebabe is the closest thing to a cahracter who just gets to shrug that off.
The battlebabe is a blank slate when it comes to who and what you will decide to fight for (compare to the Operator, tied to gigs; the Hardholder; the Brainer, requiring puppets; etc.) -- that's the source of the character's power and also thematically important in a game that is about relationships and interdependancy.
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Weird, I always thought River was Firefly's battlebabe, pretty straightforwardly. But maybe I just never thought it through.
Brainer.
I think that most of the character playbooks started at a Firefly level and now have changed considerably. People say that because it's just too coincidental that 9 of the playbooks match up very, very closely with ALL 9 of the people from that show.
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I think River's pretty straightforwardly a threat.
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Maybe. All of this is kinda off topic but:
Firefly's cast:
A doctor
A sneaky hot person
A psychic
A vehicle operator
A preacher
A heavy gun guy
A crew leader
A techperson
A sexy person who sells companionship
AW's classes:
A doctor
A sneaky hot person
A psychic
A vehicle operator
A preacher
A a heavy gun person
A crew leader
A techperson
A sexy person who sells companionship
A bike ganger
A leader
Am I really the only one who sees overlap here?
That's not to say that they're straight copies. The savvyhead, for instance, is way different than the mechanic from Firefly, much more weird. All of them are greatly changed in taking them to a vastly different setting. I definitely don't think that Firefly is the current best example for an AW analog.
But there are clear parallels and I don't think it's off base to suggest that Firefly was a clear starting point.
But back on topic:
I'm not sure yet what the added dimension of the battlebabe class is yet, but I do that the class hold up it's own in combat. With the Perfect Instincts and Ice Cold moves, they're taking +5 to two of the basic moves and a +2/3 to Seize by force.
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The character types do match up, yeah. But, like you say, they're pretty different when implemented in the world of the apocalypse.
For me, the main things that make Firefly a touchstone for AW are the inherent dangerous sexiness of the characters, and their place in a totally hostile world. It's the mix of external pressures and uncertain relationships.
Take Jayne. As a fellow PC, he's clearly the last person you should trust. You have to keep an eye on him at all times. But he's not, like, a threat -- not the way that everyone else outside the ship is. The whole wide world is your enemy, so maybe you do need to count on Jayne, this one time, after all.
That's AW to me.
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That's a good point. I think that's a awesome mix.
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With the Perfect Instincts and Ice Cold moves, they're taking +5 to two of the basic moves and a +2/3 to Seize by force.
Could you possibly show your work here? I'm not seeing how any of this adds up.
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With the Perfect Instincts and Ice Cold moves, they're taking +5 to two of the basic moves and a +2/3 to Seize by force.
Could you possibly show your work here? I'm not seeing how any of this adds up.
Like math class... :)
So if you really want to min/max the battlebabe, there are, like most classes, several ways to go. You're gonna want one of the stat blocks with Sharp.
(As an aside, sharp is bad ass, since the bonus to reading a sitch is on going as long as you're using the MC's answers. Vincent even made where the Angel gets +3 Sharp a class improvement, rather than a move another class could take like the Brainer's Preternatural at-will brain attunement or the Gunlugger's Insano like Drano.)
So now you've got +1 Sharp and Perfect Instincts, right? That gives you a +2 when acting on the MC's answers to a situation you read. This means that when you're Acting Under Fire while using the MC's answers, you're rolling+3 Cool +2 = 5.
You've also got Ice Cold. This means that you use Cool to Go Aggro, at least on NPCs. When you read a situation that gives you a +2 to Going Aggro, so that's rolling+3 Cool +2 = +5.
Same with Seize By Force. You get that +2, which if you take the +1 Hard improvement, that's +3. If you take the Gunlugger's Insano Like Draino, that's +4.
Now you can't go up to a Gunlugger in the middle of the street and win a knife fight, but when the Battlebabe sneaks around, comes up with plans and executes on her plans, she's a beast. You're gonna want to take that +1 to sharp when you can, of course.
Say, for instance, you take a long machete blade with a hole punched out of the bottom with a long chain tied to it. That's a machete chain (3-harm hand area). With Merciless (+1 Harm), you could be rolling+5 Go Aggro to force a room full of guards down. If they force your hand, you'd be doing 4-harm to everyone in the room, ignoring the gang bonus because your weapon has area.
Now the Gunlugger can be similarly combat-maxed, but the Battlebabe is not too bad at social stuff as well. It's my favorite character and as soon as I get a chance to play rather than MC, I'm gonna jump all over it.
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With the Perfect Instincts and Ice Cold moves, they're taking +5 to two of the basic moves and a +2/3 to Seize by force.
Could you possibly show your work here? I'm not seeing how any of this adds up.
+3 cool for acting under fire or going aggro, and +2 from acting on the answers you get from reading a situation. (So, it's +5, if you can make a sharp roll.)
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See, those maxed stats do even matter.
If you're going to be a badass you do with what's at hand. A knife, a -1weird, and less three tick on your harm meter.
I'll stand by what Daniel said: the BB doesn't need no body and no thing. That's the idea. Min/max, sure. Vx's game are build so that's okay but not very interesting. The interesting is in the fail. In failing better.
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Yeah, to some extent that's true. It's not the whole story though or else the best game would have you rolling 2d6 towards a target of 13.
I think that the 7-9 is where it's interesting. You get want you want, kinda, but it sucks. Han Solo 7-9'd the whole damn Star Wars trilogy and it was awesome.
But I don't mind min/maxing in a game like this. There's that great little min part.
If you REALLY wanted to min/max, you'd take a Brainlugger who could use unnatural lust transfixion. :)
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With the Perfect Instincts and Ice Cold moves, they're taking +5 to two of the basic moves and a +2/3 to Seize by force.
Could you possibly show your work here? I'm not seeing how any of this adds up.
+3 cool for acting under fire or going aggro, and +2 from acting on the answers you get from reading a situation. (So, it's +5, if you can make a sharp roll.)
Ooohkay, I kind of get where you're coming from. But you're assuming 1) That the battlebabe will always read a sitch, always SUCCEED at reading a sitch, and always act on the MCs answers. But these aren't really givens. 2) Her BEST starting Hard is 0, so even if she successfully reads a sitch and acts on the answer, she's only getting +2 to seizing by force, not +3. But maybe you're not assuming starting stats? 3) You're assuming she chooses those particular moves, and while they're sweet moves, they really all are. I'd be disappointed with the character if two of the moves were so obviously "better" than it was considered a given that they need to be chosen immediately.
But I'm being really nit-picky. If your point is that sometimes the battlebabe can be super crazy awesome, you'll hear no argument from me.
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As far as options go, you can build a BB that can do 6-harm in one go (Merciless+Custom Weaon: Big, High-powered Shotgun) from the start of the game. You still have to 'play for positioning' to get the most out of it, and it's still probably more effective when used with Go Aggro (if you took Ice Cold) than a straight up Seize By Force, but that's a mighty big (boom)stick to back up your speaking softly, as you've got a decent chance of getting 7 or more, and "Suck it Up' is going to go down badly.
Here's what I'm seeing: It's not that the Battlebabe is bad at combat - it's just that, as opposed to, say, the Gunlugger, her moves are not simple and direct. Threaten violence and back it up if need be rather than go straight for the throat, for example. Or play off yr Hot as well and offer em a choice: "Really good night? Or really bad night? Either way, it's gonna be memorable..."
Yeah, it's gonna blow up in your face sometimes, but that's true of each and every move in each and every playbook.
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It does raise the question of what did inspire the Battlebabe. I don't really see any characters from the works in the Immediate Media Influences that map all that closely.
Maybe I'm showing my age, but I would assume Taarna the Tarakian from Heavy Metal is the quintessential battlebabe.
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Regarding the 'Babe's sex move, Daniel Levine had this to say over at Storygames:
[It] means that s/he never has sex unless s/he wants to, for its own sake.
This is kinda what I was getting at, but more clearly stated.
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Nope. Speaking from experience, being a Battlebabe is great for being just competant enough to get into trouble in style. You can get out of trouble too, just not by doing violence. A battlebabe might take on an entire army with a sword, but he'd get out by sweet-talking the army into doing him a favor, not by decimating them.
I just got started in an online game and the Battlebabe jumped out at me as uniquely interesting because of just that thing you point out, Elizabeth, which was that idea that she's actually not a fighter per se.
For the OP, what has worked for me so far in terms of story and the general fun of the game is to essentially treat violence as just another conversational gambit, to not take it any more or less personally than the character would any other social conflict. My PC started his first day getting shot at by a couple of contract killers; 15 minutes later, he's helped get one to the Hospital and is paying the other to go look for a giant octopus because the octopus is just more interesting than why they've been hired to kill him. More than the other characters, I think the ironclad certainty you're invincible, or just too damn hot to die, is rich territory for getting yourself into really, really interesting situations.
-Jim C.
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too damn hot to die
Cool. Too cool to die. Battlebabes may or may not be hot, but good goddamn are they ever fuckin' cool.
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too damn hot to die
Cool. Too cool to die. Battlebabes may or may not be hot, but good goddamn are they ever fuckin' cool.
Heh. Fair enough, though the one I'm playing is cool because he's so hot.
-JC
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Our Battlebabe, Mar (the stripper cowboy), kicks all kinds of ass. He's got Ice Cold, Merciless, and a rifle with a scope and the hi-powered tag (so, all told, he does 6-harm when shooting from afar). He also took NOT TO BE FUCKED WITH. Now whether he's in a big ol' fight or sniping from a distance, things die when he wants 'em to.
He's burned down buildings, blown up vehicles, destroyed homes, murdered dozens, and is generally just a badass. Now that I've read the Jayne reference, I see Mar as being very Jayne like. Not too bright in most arenas, but when it comes to mayhem he is a genius beyond reproach.
His one fear is the maelstrom. He has weird-2 and hadn't rolled that stat ever, until our seventh session when I sprung some psychic badness on him. He rolled, failed, and went slightly crazy trying to shoot things that weren't really there. He hated the maelstrom before, but now he genuinely fears it! Cool.